THIS DAY IN HISTORY

St. Paul’s Cathedral bombed

During the Battle of Britain, the German Luftwaffe launches a heavy nighttime air raid on London. The dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral was pierced by a Nazi bomb, leaving the high altar in ruin. It was one of the few occasions that the 17th-century cathedral suffered significant damage during Germany’s nearly ceaseless bombing raids on London in the fall of 1940.

According to tradition, a Roman temple to the goddess Diana once stood on Ludgate Hill at the site of St. Paul’s Cathedral. In 604 A.D., King Aethelberht I dedicated the first Christian cathedral there to St. Paul. That cathedral burned, and its replacement was destroyed by Vikings in 962. A third cathedral was destroyed by fire in 1087 and was replaced by a grand Norman structure that was completed in the 13th century. In the 16th century, the fourth cathedral fell into disrepair and was damaged by fire, and further harm was done during the English civil wars of the 17th century. In the 1660s, the English architect Sir Christopher Wren was enlisted to repair the cathedral, but the Great Fire of London intervened, destroying Old St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1666.

ADVERTISEMENT

Thanks for watching!

In the aftermath of the fire, Wren designed a new St. Paul’s Cathedral, with dozens of smaller new churches ranged around it like satellites. The cathedral was Wren’s masterpiece, featuring a baroque design and a prominent, stately dome. Wren himself set down the foundation block in 1675 and in 1710 put the final stone in place. When the architect died in 1723, he was buried with great ceremony in St. Paul’s. An inscription near his tomb reads, Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice–Latin for “Reader, if you seek a monument, look about you.” Many other notable British citizens later joined him in St. Paul’s crypts, including the military heroes Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington.

ADVERTISEMENT

Thanks for watching!

ADVERTISEMENT

Thanks for watching!

St. Paul’s Cathedral became an inspiration to the British people during World War II. In the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe attempted to bomb Britain into submission by pounding London and other major cities, but St. Paul’s miraculously escaped major bomb damage, even as historic buildings nearby were reduced to rubble. Images of St. Paul’s framed by smoke and fire became a symbol of Britain’s indomitable spirit. Civilian defense brigades, including the St. Paul’s Fire Watch, protected the structure from fire, and at one point an unexploded bomb was removed at great risk from the roof of the cathedral. Despite the damage caused on the night of October 9, 1940, the cathedral survived the Blitz largely intact. In 1944, St. Paul’s bells rang out to celebrate the liberation of Paris, and in 1945 services marking the end of the war in Europe were attended by 35,000 people.

FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!

ALSO ON THIS DAY

German businessman Oskar Schindler, credited with saving 1,200 Jews from the Holocaust, dies at the age of 66. A member of the Nazi Party, he ran an enamel-works factory in Krakow during the German occupation of Poland, employing workers from the nearby Jewish ghetto. When the ...read more

Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov, the Soviet physicist who helped build the USSR’s first hydrogen bomb, is awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in recognition of his struggle against “the abuse of power and violations of human dignity in all its forms.” Sakharov was forbidden by the ...read more

Religious dissident Roger Williams is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony by the General Court of Massachusetts. Williams had spoken out against the right of civil authorities to punish religious dissension and to confiscate Indian land. After leaving Massachusetts, ...read more

On this day in 1992, 18-year-old Michelle Knapp is watching television in her parents’ living room in Peekskill, New York when she hears a thunderous crash in the driveway. Alarmed, Knapp ran outside to investigate. What she found was startling, to say the least: a sizeable hole ...read more

On this day in 1967, socialist revolutionary and guerilla leader Che Guevara, age 39, is killed by the Bolivian army. The U.S.-military-backed Bolivian forces captured Guevara on October 8 while battling his band of guerillas in Bolivia and assassinated him the following day. His ...read more

On this day in 1936, harnessing the power of the mighty Colorado River, Hoover Dam begins sending electricity over transmission lines spanning 266 miles of mountains and deserts to run the lights, radios, and stoves of Los Angeles. Initially named Boulder Dam, work on the dam was ...read more

Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox.

Hailed by many critics as Eugene O’Neill’s finest work, The Iceman Cometh opens at the Martin Beck Theater on this day in 1956. The play, about desperate tavern bums clinging to illusion as a remedy for despair, was the last O’Neill play to be produced on Broadway before the ...read more

On this day in 1963, a landslide in Italy leads to the deaths of more than 2,000 people when it causes a sudden and massive wave of water to overwhelm a dam. The Diga del Vajont dam was built in the Vaiont Gorge to supply hydroelectric power to Northern Italy. Located 10 miles ...read more

Chicago bootlegger Roger “The Terrible” Touhy escapes from Illinois’ Stateville Prison by climbing the guard’s tower. Touhy, who had been framed for kidnapping by his bootlegging rivals with the help of corrupt Chicago officials, was serving a 99-year sentence for a kidnapping he ...read more